Credit Cards

[Inquartata]

Well, crap, if you keep this up I will never have a chance to get back to the "Health Care Reform" thread. Unlike Fatfencer, I cannot write these lengthy posts "in 15 minutes a day". Well, not unless you want me to put as little thought into it as he sometimes seemed to do!


Aaaanyway...

"You might object that free workers must be paid something additional above subsistence to induce them to take the job" on 6/20. I think that a very real difference

You recall that I also pointed out that slaves were regularly given money during the 19th century...at least, that was the contention of the program on Jefferson's slave operations. ( I dug up that it was one of those "Scientific American" programs with Alan Alda, on PBS. )

and further, the migration to the North might have happened decades earlier.

This is in reference to what? I mean, how is it operative?

Captive (literally) workforces cost less. Pending a total cost/benefit analysis with actual numbers, it's interesting but conjectural.

I'd have to say that I think it unlikely, unless the free work force possesses some degree of market power. As we know from the situation after the Civil War, and indeed into the unionization period, this was not the case in the South. Wages tended toward only slightly more than subsistence for unskilled workers---sometimes less.

The free worker did not have to be bought or raised: there was no up-front capital investment. The free worker did not have to be guarded. He did not hae to be imprisoned. He did not occasionally have to be chased and caught. If he simply left, he could be easily replaced with, again, no large cost, unlike an escaped slave. If he decided not to work, he could be discharged and replaced at little cost, whereas a slave had to be punished---something which could result in debility and a decrease or cessation in labor for some period of time---and "motivated" to keep working. If he got sick, it was the planter who had to care for him in order to maintain his investment; a sick or injured free worker could simply be replaced, and there was no obligation to care for him---no health plans in those days.

It just seems highly unlikely to me that given all this the free worker was actually the more costly of the two.

Oh, you're such an optimist! Did not Sherlock Holmes say much the same, but also that he needed data to work on?

In opposition I cite Hercule Poirot. All he needed was "the little gray cells".

That slaves were costly compared to free labor.

Well...but what answer do you make to the cost factors I've posited above?

the plantation owners of the time apparently believed that slaves cost less and that they were entitled to keep them.

Well...maybe they did. It is possible for people to make mistakes in judging what most advances their welfare---especially when information is limited and/or distorted by religion, morality or prejudice.

Or maybe some of them knew, but found it too difficult to buck social expectations and peer pressures, and family traditions. Who can say?

the article repeatedly says around p56 that the price of a slave varied directly with the market price for cotton!

Hmm. It appears to say "generally followed", which is slightly different...

It also says that "Many factors influenced the price". This is a long way from a clear cut identity relationship.



[quote]So it does not seem based on shortages.[quote]

All price rises are based on quantity demanded exceeding quantity supplied. That price went up reflects rising demand for slaves. Even granting that this rise in demand derived entirely from the demand for cotton, it says nothing about whether or not shortages developed in the slave market...

Further, if slaves were increasingly expensive then alternatives would have been found when the market boomed.

"If"? I thought that we had agreed on this point. It was perhaps the main thesis of Fogel and Engerman's contention that slavery was profitable...

However, yes, that should have happened---if planters were behaving as rational economic actors with sufficient information to make good economic decisions...

Yet, people may come to completely different conclusions and think that their reasons were correct. In other words, he or anyone else can be wrong - especially when reasoning without adequate data.

I would hope that the superior logic would still prevail in the end!

And that is why economics (of that time at least) is not a science, and consequently the "invisible hand" statement not a law of science.

Well, no one actually calls it a law, you know. In fact, most people have trouble framing it as a statement...

I would still maintain however that its operation is as close to a law as exists in the social sciences.

No numbers hence no way to prove or falsify a theory, then it's not a science.

It's not that there are none. It's that it's just so difficult to frame the questions properly to arrive at a conclusion of validity. After all Smith himself only uses the term once ( I think ) and as a general metaphor rather than as a specific thesis; he makes no attempt to prove it, only provides example upon example of real-world occasions on which it functioned, and upon which when it was violated disaster followed...

But that sure sounds like a law to me. ( The smily police strike again. )

Hang on then - Smith said "inherently unprofitable". So he was wrong if it was ever profitable even if it later became unprofitable.

I don't know whether or not it was ever profitable. He may have been right; I simply don't know. I do think that it was not in the antebellum South, though.

( I am not so easily caught in a fork as that! )

Growing wheat is different.

How? You still need field hands, do you not?

That specifically is the assertion I have yet to see evidence of. Which technology was that?

Just off the top of my head, and staying with the cotton theme...I would think "textile mills", for one.

Sure enough!

"...the number of cotton and wool factories in Georgia grew from fourteen to thirty-five between 1844 and 1849. But the census counts frequently omitted factories that were temporarily inoperative or under construction, and the number continued to increase. In 1851 local newspapers noted at least forty-four cotton factories in the state, and by the mid-1850s a common estimate was fifty. The mill-building boom of 1846-53 contributed to an increase of at least 214 percent over the number of factories listed in the 1840 census."


Then of course there's the steam engine and its application to a variety of tasks ( back to John Henry again, but also in shipping, mining... ).

And I would expect...railroads? Lumber cutting and planing?

Ah, here we go:


"In 1860, perhaps up to 200,000 slaves were employed in industry. During the 1850s, many slaves were withdrawn from industry because high cotton and slave prices made employing them in agriculture more advantageous. In addition to textiles, slaves were employed in iron, lumbering, turpentine, mining, and some other industries."

http://freepages.history.rootsweb.an.../antebell.html

Parenthetically, from the same source:

"The great majority of white Southern families owned no slaves. The approximately four million slaves in 1860 were owned by about 385,000 individuals. About 72 percent of slave owners owned fewer than ten slaves. Only about 10,000 owned more than 200. About half the slaves were owned by 12 percent of slave owners."

This confirms what I had remembered but could not find the numbers to support.

I wonder why the use of slaves was not more ubiquitous, if it was so obviously more profitable than using free laborers?



And, time for fencing again. Supposedly we're getting another "A" WS fencer into ASU, and she's going to fence with us today!

[lindajdunn]

There you go. Having children was a choice. It was a personal choice, and not society's. By the same lights it is not up to society to offset the money---YOUR money---that you spent on your children. The old saying about sleeping in the beds we make springs to mind. The state is not well suited to be our personal maid, and still less is it our "right" to have it be.

And "Oh, but something went wrong" is not a justification to make an exception to that.

If I had been SLEEPING, I wouldn't have had children in the first place.
Wait a minute. I'm female.

It is possible to sleep through sex.

Never mind.

Society didn't offset the money I spent on my children. I simply lived very poorly and couldn't save anything. It was interesting, driving a car with no reverse gear for a month. Parking was challenging. But I'll spare you the sob story.

I contend that providing children with health care, an education, and sufficient nutrition to develop normally (no scurry, etc.) serves society and is cost effective.

[lindajdunn]

Nope. The alternative is no health care. You name a few possible consequences, but not an exclusive list of them. Continuing good health is another possibility.

Not according to a friend of mine who screens incoming patients at an ER. What happens is that people go to the ER instead of a primary physician. Can't afford to pay? Then you don't.

There are many possible scenarios about how that loss is recouped, but I think we went over that a few weeks ago in another thread.

When my niece had kidney stones and no insurance, she underwent an unsuccessful surgery followed by more time in surgery and then a two-week stay in intensive care. She didn't die, but her family did have to declare bankruptcy and none of those medical bills were paid.

My contention is that since society is already bearing these expenses, we should reorganize health care in a more efficient manner and better track these expenditures (which would enable us, hopefully to find better ways of reducing the expenditures).

[Inquartata]

It is possible to sleep through sex.

Huh. Bummer for you...

Then again, maybe not.

Society didn't offset the money I spent on my children. I simply lived very poorly and couldn't save anything.

Right. Because of a choice you made...yes?

I'm just having trouble seeing how this translates to any sort of policy prescription.

I contend that providing children with health care, an education, and sufficient nutrition to develop normally (no scurry, etc.) serves society and is cost effective.

Perhaps.

But that still doesn't make any of those things public goods, or warrant provison of them by the government.

You could make the same argument for almost anything. Like cosmetic surgery, for example.

Not according to a friend of mine who screens incoming patients at an ER.

No, you missed my point. I was saying that lack of health care does not inevitably result in "disease, disability and death". Many people never seem to get sick. So it is quite possible to have no health care and still live a healthy life. I should know, I did without any health insurance whatsoever from the time I left the Army until I took my present job at the age of 46, and I was disgustingly healthy for those 22 years. ( Still am, mostly. )

So it wasn't insurance that kept me healthy then, and it's not warding off "disease, disability or death" now.

[I_luv_saber]

Both my children were planned children to the point of undergoing surgery, taking expensive pills, and having injections to prevent a miscarriage. We had -- or so I believed -- a solid financial standing and had purchased a nice 3-bedroom, 2-bath house with half down.

Life is what happens when you're making other plans. As difficult as it may be for people to believe who have never experienced "sh!t happens", you can follow all the so-called rules and do all the right things and still find yourself in a situation you never thought you would experience.

Exactly, which was why I included the "situations change" bit. There are some things that cannot be planned for unless you go to a level insanely beyond prudence. I'm not saying your situation was a bad choice... simply saying that just because it's child support, does not give a free ride for passing responsibility. Many people DO have children, and make that choice, knowing they can't financially support them. Basically, my point is, there is still choice involved to a point.

[lindajdunn]

But that still doesn't make any of those things public goods, or warrant provison of them by the government.

Yes, it does, if you're fiscally conservative and you're taking the long view. It's cheaper to provide preventive measures than to have the government pick up the bill for lifelong care at a later date.

You could make the same argument for almost anything. Like cosmetic surgery, for example.

It's possible to take any argument to the extreme.

No, you missed my point. I was saying that lack of health care does not inevitably result in "disease, disability and death". Many people never seem to get sick. So it is quite possible to have no health care and still live a healthy life. I should know, I did without any health insurance whatsoever from the time I left the Army until I took my present job at the age of 46, and I was disgustingly healthy for those 22 years. ( Still am, mostly. )

So it wasn't insurance that kept me healthy then, and it's not warding off "disease, disability or death" now.

My husband has been sick twice in the twenty plus years I've known him. Both times, it was food poisoning. [I note that he ate this food elsewhere so it was not my fault.] I still insist he see a physician once a year because the run of good luck can stop any time and we have two health insurance policies for the same reason. I don't want to lose everything we've worked a lifetime to accumulate because one or both of us develop an expensive illness.

Health insurance won't keep you well. It just reduces your potential need to file for bankruptcy if you're unlucky and get sick.*

And if people don't have health insurance and they get sick and they file for bankruptcy, then their bad luck has a ripple effect upon the rest of us.

*It also increases the likelihood (for most people) that they will seek medical care when they have symptoms and thus reduce the likelihood that a little, inexpensive problem will become a major and expensive one.

[lindajdunn]

Many people DO have children, and make that choice, knowing they can't financially support them. Basically, my point is, there is still choice involved to a point.

And that point is usually the failure of birth control .

[I_luv_saber]

Yes.... yes, it is.

[jeff]

Well, crap, if you keep this up I will never have a chance to get back to the "Health Care Reform" thread (snip)

Understood. If you don't mind, let's drop this one. It's getting a little shop-worn, and I think we've articulated our arguments to one another without convincing each other. Not that that has ever stopped us before!

I agree that your arguments are plausible, but don't agree that they are conclusive (even Poirot needed info for his little grey cells, n'est ce pas? ) and perhaps you feel mine might be plausible (I don't want to put words in your mouth) but not conclusive either. A formal study of the topic would be interesting. If you want us to continue to slog down this road, let me know, as I wouldn't want to be disobliging.

And, time for fencing again. Supposedly we're getting another "A" WS fencer into ASU, and she's going to fence with us today!

Very cool. She should be made to understand the importance of spending as much time as possible fencing in airconditioned comfort instead of being in the Hades-like oven-temperature outdoors.

[Hauptman]

Nope. The alternative is no health care. You name a few possible consequences, but not an exclusive list of them. Continuing good health is another possibility.

( Of course, death is not to be avoided even if you HAVE health care. )



This is a pretty dangerous standard, and reminds me of the dictum that democracy will work only until the people realize that they can vote themselves money from the public coffers.

I fear that we are not far from that point already...




Meh, do you have to see them to believe that they exist?

If merely reading their words will suffice, I can tell you that yes, you know of at least one. I will say it clearly: IMO there is no inherent right to health care.





IMO: As much as you can afford, or as someone is willing to give you. ( I have no problem with philanthropy, so long as I am not forced to help pay for it. If you wish to donate to a free clinic, or if a doctor wishes to work pro bono, or a charitable organization wishes to extend health care to the poor, that's great. That's private choice to use your own resources to maximize your own utility. That's freedom. )

Continuing good health is possible but over time is unlikely. But then health insurance would be irrelevant in that case. The key is that life expectancy is dramatically increased when modern health care is made available. Without access to health care death, disease, and disability become highly probable.

But I believe you are being disingenuous anyway; if a person goes into an emergency room in need of urgent care are you really saying he has no right medical aid? That goes against ANY policy position I have seen from any remotely mainstream politician or commentator.

That's why I say that there is an assumption in this society that health care, at least minimally, is a right.

[Inquartata]

Yes, it does, if you're fiscally conservative and you're taking the long view. It's cheaper to provide preventive measures than to have the government pick up the bill for lifelong care at a later date.

Well, see, there's the flaw in your hypothesis---that last sentence. Because who said anything about the government paying for that, either? That's saying that a bad economic policy s better than a worse one. It's best to avoid either.

And if people don't have health insurance and they get sick and they file for bankruptcy, then their bad luck has a ripple effect upon the rest of us.

So, before there WAS health insurance, there was no nation, no society, no prosperity?

When was the country at its most powerful and prosperous? Before the advent of HMOs and insurance, or after?

How about Britain? When was it most powerful and prosperous? Before or after NHI?

You're trying to erect a specious identity between health care for people and national health, and it simply won't fly, I'm afraid.

And even if it did...the provision of health care is still not best carried out by government. Few things are, and those few are all public goods...of which health care is not one.

Continuing good health is possible but over time is unlikely.

It is as unlikely WITH health care. The time period is just different.

My father had Medicare AND supplemental insurance. It did not keep him healthy, and it did not prevent him from dying. Death comes to us all, and Big Daddy Government is not going to save you from it...

But then health insurance would be irrelevant in that case.

Yet under Obama's proposals everyone would have to pay to have it anyway.

Every time the state tells you what you MUST do---including, perhaps even especially, what you MUST do with the earnings of your private labor---freedom diminishes. And in this case, everyone will be be made worse off economically, because the efficient allocation of scarce resources to their most highly valued uses by the costless marketplace will be short-circuited. Overall welfare decreases.

The key is that life expectancy is dramatically increased when modern health care is made available.

Is it?

I seem to recall that those places on earth where people live the longest on average are some fairly primitive areas. And they have been the same places since well before widespread modern medicine.

And if I remember correctly, researchers usually attribute noteworthy longevity to lifestyle and diet, not access to health care...

Without access to health care death, disease, and disability become highly probable.

Whereas they vanish as possibilities if you have an employer-provided health plan?

But I believe you are being disingenuous anyway; if a person goes into an emergency room in need of urgent care are you really saying he has no right medical aid?

If he cannot pay for it, or get someone else to do so on his behalf, willingly, yes, I'm saying that. Medical care is a service. It has costs. Bandages and blood cannot be conjured out of the air. It is not a "right" in any sense.

That goes against ANY policy position I have seen from any remotely mainstream politician or commentator.

Aaaand that makes it incorrect?

Don't make me go to Aristotle, man.

That's why I say that there is an assumption in this society that health care, at least minimally, is a right.

Again, there's also an "assumption" that prayer is efficacious. Does that prove that it is?

[jeff]

How about Britain? When was it most powerful and prosperous? Before or after NHI?

And even if it did...the provision of health care is still not best carried out by government. Few things are, and those few are all public goods...of which health care is not one.

I read up on this when looking into how different countries had different pathways to whatever system they arrived at. In the US, for example, employer-provided healthcare was a war-time response to wage and price controls when competing for employees. In the UK, there was a different road: during the war many families were evacuated and the government provided their healthcare. It turned out that the overall population had better healthcare and better outcomes. After the war: the NHS.

So, while it would be a fallacy to link the advent of NHS to the end of the British Empire - that's a result of big-scale geopolitical events that affected the entire world and ended European colonialism - it is definitely the case that government-provided healthcare was more effective BY EVERY MEASURE than the intermittent private care that preceded it.

[jeff]

Again, there's also an "assumption" that prayer is efficacious. Does that prove that it is?

Well, the impossibility of petitioning the Lord with prayer ("you cannot petition the lord with prayer!") has been shown by the well-known scientist Jim Morrison

[jeff]

I seem to recall that those places on earth where people live the longest on average are some fairly primitive areas. And they have been the same places since well before widespread modern medicine.

And if I remember correctly, researchers usually attribute noteworthy longevity to lifestyle and diet, not access to health care...

No for the first. And the latter is within a population, not when comparing countries

See http://longevity.about.com/od/resear...expectancy.htm Look at the best and worst.

Modern countries with access to healthcare have the best longevity. In primitive-healthcare countries you will find a few individuals fortunate to not have died from infection (whether wounds, or respiratory infections), cancer, peritonitis from untreated appendicitis, death during childbirth, diarrhea, influenza, cholera, etc and live to an advanced age, but in general, this is completely wrong - they are statistical outliers.

Now, within a given population - say the US, or France, a special individual's longevity that stands out from his/her cohort is going to be distinguished by diet and exercise. That that's in relationship to a given population.

Populations with healthcare live longer. Live better. There are diminishing returns, and an excess of healthcare can actually present a risk, but in the broadest terms: populations that have healthcare do better.

EDIT: there's evidence that being chronically undernourished can lengthen lives - it works really well in some mouse studies! - but while this may apply to the lucky individuals in poor countries who last till old age, it's neither a realistic nor meaningful option for first world countries.

[Hauptman]

If he cannot pay for it, or get someone else to do so on his behalf, willingly, yes, I'm saying that. Medical care is a service. It has costs. Bandages and blood cannot be conjured out of the air. It is not a "right" in any sense.

Wow.... so many fallacies, too little time so I'll stay focused on the main point.

So apparently you believe that it is fine to leave a person to die instead of insisting that those capable of helping do so. Lucky for us all that you're not in charge because the legislatures, the courts, and leaders of both major parties have made it perfectly clear for quite a long time now that people are entitled to at least minimal life-saving care. Any doctor or health care professional who ignores this mandate could find themselves in jail.

I don't really think you feel this way about the situation; only that you will stake out a position and stick to it regardless of the weakness of the arguments. Others here have already started addressing the weakness of those arguments, but I have no desire to argue just for the sake of arguing. Have fun!

[Inquartata]

Modern countries with access to healthcare have the best longevity. In primitive-healthcare countries you will find a few individuals fortunate to not have died from infection (whether wounds, or respiratory infections), cancer, peritonitis from untreated appendicitis, death during childbirth, diarrhea, influenza, cholera, etc and live to an advanced age, but in general, this is completely wrong - they are statistical outliers.

I was thinking rather about stories like this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7250675.stm

You will note not a mention of health care as a factor...

EDIT: there's evidence that being chronically undernourished can lengthen lives - it works really well in some mouse studies! - but while this may apply to the lucky individuals in poor countries who last till old age, it's neither a realistic nor meaningful option for first world countries.

Calorie restriction, not undernourishment.

But probably, like being married, it only SEEMS like you live longer doing that.

http://longevity.about.com/od/longev...p/Abkhasia.htm

[Inquartata]

Wow.... so many fallacies

Oh...come on now...how about naming just one?

Otherwise it's just an unproven assertion, and an attempt to poison the well.

So apparently you believe that it is fine to leave a person to die instead of insisting that those capable of helping do so.

Yes.

I have used this analogy before:

A Republican sees a man drowning. He throws a life preserver on a rope that reaches halfway to the man, then shouts that he must do his part to help himself and swim to the preserver.

A Democrat sees a man drowning, throws him a life preserver tied to a rope, then runs off to find other people to go and haul on the rope to pull the man in.

Like Milton Friedman, I think that if some are minded to be charitable---and some always are---great. But the instant that an attempt is made to coerce people to "help" others, it ceases to become charity and becomes something much less laudable.

Lucky for us all that you're not in charge because the legislatures, the courts, and leaders of both major parties have made it perfectly clear for quite a long time now that people are entitled to at least minimal life-saving care.

And do I need to name the fallacy there?

I don't really think you feel this way

I can but shrug and lift my palms. But perhaps you should examine the nature of an opinion which cannot admit of even the possibility of dissent...

[fencerchica]

Like Milton Friedman, I think that if some are minded to be charitable---and some always are---great. But the instant that an attempt is made to coerce people to "help" others, it ceases to become charity and becomes something much less laudable.

It sounds to me like a strict interpretation of what you're saying would include disbanding law enforcement and for that matter, the military, and telling the citizenry, "We will not coerce you (through taxation and law) into maintaining a collective law and order, or seeing to the collective national defense. Arm yourselves and each citizen shall protect him- or herself as they see fit."

Obviously this is unworkable because the tragedy of the commons is such that maintaining security (both law & order and national defense) must be a group burden. I believe education, environmental protection, and healthcare fall into this category as well because they present problems exceeding the scope of what private citizens can manage effectively on an independent basis. Of course, I recall that you're the fellow who believes the public library system should be abolished, unless I'm confusing you with another fnetter? Personally I think you're a bit of an anarchist!

[Inquartata]

It sounds to me like a strict interpretation of what you're saying would include disbanding law enforcement and for that matter, the military,

Nope. Defense and ( arguably ) law enforcement meet the definition of public goods.

...maintaining security (both law & order and national defense) must be a group burden.

You've got it. They are non-excludable; that is, any given citizen is defended even if he does not choose to pay. This being the case, the rational individual will choose to be a "free-rider" and leave it to others to pay. If this practice becomes widespread enough, the good will not be provided at all. The only way it can be assured is to coerce the people who benefit to pay. The state does this through its monopoly on force and its taxing powers.

Health care is different. If you receive a heart transplant or dialysis, only you are made better off. If you receive a physical or prenatal care or antibiotics for your sinus infection, only you are made better off. Your cancer treatments spill over onto no one else. It does not affect anyone else that your broken arm is set. Why then should the whole of the polity pay for them simply because you cannot, or do not choose to do so?

Yes, there are aspects of health care which have spillover effects. If you want to argue for those limited aspects being publicly provided or subsidized, you will be on stronger ground than you will if you try to argue that health care qua health care should be. ( And things like immunizations and communicable disease vector control and so on already follow this model. )

[jeff]

Just enough potential for humor to make it worth dipping in...

I was thinking rather about stories like this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7250675.stm

You will note not a mention of health care as a factor...

Right, so all we have to do is put the entire population on a severely restricted diet, and all will be well. Or arrange to be Okinawan. Got it! Yeah, that works.

Diet and exercise are essential - but not sufficient. Note that this does not contradict what I said previously. Here you have populations where the oldest members are indeed very old. Very nice for them. But the news story does not report average age at death, nor the number of people who died (say) from cancer (stomach cancer is big in Japan and Okinawa), or peritonitis. Those people don't show up in the folksy article, which reports on maxima, not averages or distributions. As far as we can tell, these articles might be reporting on the few lucky survivors of populations with poor average lifespans. So, interesting - but irrelevant to our discussion.

Calorie restriction, not undernourishment.

But probably, like being married, it only SEEMS like you live longer doing that.

If the mice being studied were responsible for recording their lifespans, the subjective aspect could be in play!

Especially for married mice.

http://longevity.about.com/od/longev...p/Abkhasia.htm

And then you have the problem of areas with poor recordkeeping, and claims of incredible ages. Yup - let's solve the healthcare system that way - toss out the calendars so we don't know how old we are.